<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Her Curious Valentine's by Saveourskinship</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29386803">Her Curious Valentine's</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saveourskinship/pseuds/Saveourskinship'>Saveourskinship</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Auror Draco Malfoy, But I Love Them, Expect Silliness For This Is Silly, F/M, Fanfiction in Fanfiction, Floof and Smoot, Fluff and Humor, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hermione Is Forthright, M/M, Meta, Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, Terrible Ridiculous Smut, Theo And Harry Are Ridiculous, Valentine's Day, tongue in cheek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:49:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29386803</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saveourskinship/pseuds/Saveourskinship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione Granger CANNOT BELIEVE that Witch Weekly magazine has published an issue with fanfiction stories about herself and her best friend's Auror partner Draco Malfoy for Valentine's Day. How very dare anyone write about them like that! </p><p>(ahem)</p><p>After reading the stories though she can't help but be... curious. Uh-oh, has-to-know's.</p><p>Warning: Features simply terrible smut lines this author has rejected from past writings. Come join my shame.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>225</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Her Curious Valentine's</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Her Curious Valentine's</strong>
</p><p>Hermione heard it again. An unmistakable giggle. Sometimes when you heard a light laugh you could determine it to be a giggle or if it was an excited noise that was almost amusement, you called it a giggle as well.</p><p>This was neither of those things. This was staccato. High. Hidden behind hands. Mischievous eyes crinkling with sly glances. This was a Giggle™. And they had been following her all day.</p><p>Hermione huffed and sat down with her coffee trying to ignore it. She’d checked mirrors and she didn’t have anything in her teeth, she hadn’t sat on something embarrassing or had anything stuck to her shoes.</p><p>She sincerely hoped she hadn’t been thrust into the role of Ministry Cupid again like last year’s Valentine’s. She’d promised to hex the whole HR department if they tried that again.</p><p>“There you are!” Harry plopped down next to her while his partner sighed angrily and narrowed his eyes.</p><p>“Potter, you said you wouldn’t linger,” Malfoy ground out, voice menacing like the insidious fisting of leather gloves.</p><p>“This is visiting, not lingering,” Harry jibed back with a bright smile.</p><p>Hermione noticed the giggles and whispers had increased with the approach of the two men. Clearly whatever had happened involved not only her but one or both of them.</p><p>“Have you seen it yet?” Harry brought her back from her observation of the room.</p><p>“Seen what?”</p><p>Harry sat up straighter, clearly delighted to deliver whatever news he brought.</p><p>“Can we not, Potter? Let her remain ignorant. I wish I still was,” Draco grumbled.</p><p>Hermione looked at him curiously. His brow was set in annoyance but there was a spot of colour on his cheekbones. Embarrassment. Oh no, Hermione really didn’t like that. Draco was very rarely embarrassed.</p><p>Harry barrelled ahead anyway much to Draco’s consternation if his groan and appeal to the ceiling were any indication.</p><p>“You and Malfoy are all over the latest issue of <em>Witch Weekly</em>,” Harry gleefully supplied, bringing a curled-up magazine out of the inner pocket of his overcoat.</p><p>“Whatever for?” Hermione asked, surprised. Aside from the occasional coffee like right now or dinners at her, Theo and Harry’s place, she didn’t often see the man.</p><p>A loud, carrying voice squealed to her left. A witch with large eyes was staring at their table, pointing with a finger to her friend. “Ooh, this is <em>just</em> like the opening in ‘His Dark Desires’!”</p><p>Draco splayed a hand over his face and hid behind it while Harry laughed maniacally.</p><p>Hermione eyed the table with confusion. Oh God, what the bloody hell was going on?</p><p>Harry was lovingly caressing a copy of the gossip rag, trying to make it lay flat on the table in front of her. Hermione watched as his hand smoothed over the cover and then she cried out in shock.</p><p>She ripped it out from underneath Harry’s fingers as she took in the image with an open mouth eliciting a high-pitched and outraged, “Oh!”</p><p>Harry bounced a little in his seat and she tipped the magazine forward to look at him properly, disbelief narrowing into annoyance at how much he was enjoying this.</p><p><em>Witch Weekly’s Valentine’s Day Special: Star-Crossed Lovers Edition</em>, the curling font announced. A subtitle running along the side proclaimed: <em>Featuring Reformed Death Eater Draco Malfoy and Golden Girl Hermione Granger</em>. There was a charmed illustration of a besuited Draco and herself in a ballgown embracing on the cover. Her leg held aloft by his hand as they moved to kiss under a glimmering night sky.</p><p>“Wha- uh, just… why?” Hermione’s brain malfunctioned. She opened the magazine and looked at the Contents page which appeared to be a single article about why herself and Draco were chosen this year, another on their respective histories and then a dozen or so fictional stories about them.</p><p>She looked at her friend again who was wiggling his shoulders and clapping his hands in glee with an impish grin. “Harry! This <em>isn’t</em> funny!”</p><p>“It isn’t just funny, it’s the best day of my life!” Harry sang with a happy bobble of his head.</p><p>“I’m going to tell Theo you said that!”</p><p>“Tell him all you like, he’s gone down to the <em>Witch Weekly</em> offices personally.”</p><p>Hermione softened. “Oh, is he trying to stop them circulating it?”</p><p>Harry laughed again and Draco shuffled his feet. She met his eyes, and he gave her an uncomfortable shrug before looking away.</p><p>“Stop it? No, Theo’s gone to request more copies. We bought out the corner shop near our house and Theo is determined to turn this into a wallpaper and coat our bathroom with it by the end of the day.”</p><p>“He’s doing <em>what</em> to our bathroom?!” Hermione had been angrily flipping through the magazine but then her eyes accidentally landed on the phrase <em>’his throbbing member eagerly twitched against her pouting lips</em>’.</p><p>“Oh, GOD!” she threw it away from her like it was toxic, making Harry laugh even harder, wiping tears from his eyes.</p><p>“You- you say exactly that a number of times in these stories, Mione!” he slapped the table as he breathed the sentence out between wild chortles.</p><p>Draco was glaring at his Auror partner, tongue angrily grazing over his canine. “Oh yes, it’s just so very hilarious, Potter.”</p><p>Harry nodded amidst laughter.</p><p>“Come now, be serious, Harry! Such stories about fictional characters are one thing, but Draco and I are real people. Where do they get off writing this filth about us?”</p><p>Harry’s laugh stopped sharply, looking at her with all seriousness. “Well of course, Hermione,” his voice was lower than usual from overexertion. Then a tiny smile broke out on his face. “But I think getting off is <em>exactly</em> the point of this issue.” Then he was off again, rubbing his cheeks as they started hurting from his mirth.</p><p>Draco was looking idly down at himself, assessing elegantly curled hands. “I don’t know, Granger. I’m pretty perfect. Maybe I’m not real.”</p><p>She scoffed, “And what demented being would have possibly conjured up this particular scenario then, hmm?” She raised her eyebrows at him.</p><p>He smirked and shrugged at her. “Perhaps someone who likes the idea of this as much as the rest of wizarding Britain if we are to believe the fine people at <em>Witch Weekly </em>.” He gestured at the magazine.</p><p>For a moment Hermione imagined she could hear the faint clacking of a computer keyboard like at her parents’ house before she waved Draco’s idea away.</p><p>She cast her eyes down to the magazine that Harry was flipping through again. He’d come across a page with another piece of artwork.</p><p>Hermione threw out an indignant hand. “See take that for example,” she pulled the periodical away from Harry who whined and set it between the three of them. Draco craned over to look at the drawing. “I mean, for <em>that</em> to work you’d have to be-” and she tilted her head and gauged a length between her hands. She looked back to the art and adjusted wider before nodding.</p><p>Draco had been taking a sip of coffee before he glanced over and saw what she was indicating, the liquid getting caught in his throat, causing him to splutter and cough while he beat his chest to try force it down.</p><p>“For Salazar’s sake Granger, stop making this harder than it already is!”</p><p>Harry fell off his chair, laughing.</p><p>Letting the imagined measurement fall and bringing a hand to brush a stray curl away from her forehead, Hermione addressed him. “You can’t be rich, handsome <em>and</em> so blessed in that area. It’s impossible.”</p><p>Harry was clutching his stomach and rolling around now, stamping a foot on the floor.</p><p>Over his howling, Hermione saw Draco slowly blink and she could have sworn she heard him say, “Maybe I’m <em>not</em> real.”</p><p>Harry’s fist pumped into the air. “Best. Day. Ever!”</p><hr/><p>“Darling!” Theo called out in greeting when she got home that night.</p><p>“Don’t ‘darling’ me. I’m mad with you.”</p><p>Theo gave Hermione an overly dramatic pout and whimpered at her like a puppy dog until she relented with a roll of her eyes and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek.</p><p>“I guess that husband of mine told you about the renovation I did for the bathroom?”</p><p>“You’re not serious about that?”</p><p>“Oh, it’s already done darling!” Theo swept a hand upstairs before he placed it beside his mouth in a conspiratorial whisper. “I put the filthiest passages beside the tub in case you ever need some inspiration.”</p><p>“Oh Go-,” but she stopped herself at his expectant grin. She was going to have to end saying that phrase entirely along with ‘Right there’, ‘Just like that’, and, rather lewdly, ‘I’m going to gush my juices all over your face, Malfoy.” Though she’d never needed the latter before and didn’t suppose it would be useful in the future either.</p><p>OK, yes. She’d read some of them, it was hard not to. She wanted to prepare herself since everyone in the office seemed to be far too familiar with the stories and she kept getting set up to accidentally say quotes from it.</p><p>At least she had been relatively safe and only had to deal with the teasing from her colleagues in the Experimental Spells and Innovation Department. She wondered how Draco was faring having to be out in the field today. She knew she would have hated being around strangers, the Ministry cafeteria had been bad enough.</p><p>“Dinner’s in half an hour,” Theo told her as he bustled into the kitchen again and poured them a glass of wine, his eyes twinkling. “The other two should be coming through any minute.”</p><p>“Other <em>two</em>?” Hermione queried, taking the glass.</p><p>Theo waggled his eyebrows.</p><p>“Theo, no,” she warned, pointing a finger at him and shaking her head slowly.</p><p>“Theo, yes!” the wizard said, daintily clinking their glasses together with a charming smile before taking a drink.</p><p>She made a desperate noise and a beseeching face.</p><p>He brought an arm around her, smoothing her hair with his other hand. “I thought you might want someone here tonight who could share in your commiseration. And no one will know better than Draco.”</p><p>She nodded, finding the logic in that but when she turned her head to look at him, he seemed so pleased with himself he could have been the poster boy for Ulterior Motives.</p><p>“Theo! No!” she repeated, more forcefully this time.</p><p>He leant into her ear. “Theo, yes!” he whispered before he went back to cooking, humming to himself before he spoke to her again. “Be a dear and stir this while I add the cream?”</p><p>She sighed but did as she was bid. Luckily Theo had put his teasing behind him and asked about her day instead.</p><p>Ten minutes later, Harry and Draco arrived. Hermione and the blonde wizard automatically stood against the nearest piece of furniture as Theo ran for Harry and jumped into his arms before kissing him hello.</p><p>More than once Hermione had been sent flying when she’d accidentally gotten in the path of this tradition so anyone who knew the two of them kept out of the way until the greeting was over.</p><p>“How are you, dearest?”</p><p>“Coming home to you, so never better,” came Harry’s reply with a loving smile.</p><p>They’d been married three years already, but Hermione thought they still acted as in love as the day Harry had gotten up on a table at the Three Broomsticks and demanded Theo tell him what they were to each other.</p><p>Hermione smiled as she remembered Theo rolling his eyes dramatically and saying, “Well dearest, I’m crazy in love with you so that makes me yours in whatever capacity you’ll have me.”</p><p>Harry had lowered his pointed finger and sheepishly hopped off the table before kissing Theo deeply and saying. “All the capacity, Theo. You can have my everything.”</p><p>They’d been inseparable ever since.</p><p>Draco caught her eye and shook his head at their cooing antics. She wiggled her wine glass at him, and he gave her a big nod, so she went into the kitchen to get him one, too.</p><p>“Please tell me you have whisky still?” his voice followed her in.</p><p>She turned so he could see she was already pouring him one.</p><p>Hermione handed it to him, and he downed half of it in one go. She gave a small puff of laughter and raised her eyebrows.</p><p>“So, want to tell me about your completely normal and boring day?”</p><p>“Well, I’ve had not one, but two strange witches come up to me and ask to recreate certain scenes with them. Someone else told me they were disappointed my eyes were grey and not ‘mercurial silver’. And I’ve had three people, including Goldstein by the way if you’re interested, say I was a lucky son of a bitch because for some godforsaken reason they believe there’s some sordid truth hiding, and we really are together.”</p><p>Hermione snorted. “Sounds about the same as my day, though I also paid attention to the jealous looks I got from people if you want me to list who threw them my way. You’d definitely have an in with any one of them.”</p><p>Draco rolled his eyes. “I’ll be alright, thanks.”</p><p>Hermione screwed up her nose. “I’m sorry this is happening.”</p><p>“Why are you sorry? You didn’t cause it.” He shook his head, mocking her for trying to take responsibility.</p><p>“I know. But it makes me feel better for saying it.”</p><p>Theo skipped into the room with a cheeky smirk on his face.</p><p>“Ooh, story number seven, ‘Cream &amp; Sugar’.”</p><p>“Theo…” Hermione sighed.</p><p>But Theo had plucked a piece of paper out of his recipe book and started reading it aloud in a flouncing dramatic fashion.</p><p>“Draco picked up Hermione with his brawny arms and placed her on the kitchen bench. Her honey eyes posed a question and Draco knew the answer was growing tight in his trousers,” Theo’s voice sing-songed through the kitchen.</p><p>Hermione stared determinedly at absolutely nothing and counted down, <em>5… 4… 3… 2… 1</em>. She exhaled slowly and smiled at Draco.</p><p>“Just ignore him, he’ll keep going if we react.” Draco nodded and Hermione grabbed a wooden board from a cupboard and conjured cheeses from the fridge, indicating that Draco should choose some. She placed a knife nearby so he could cut the slices while she got the grapes, crackers and charcuterie.</p><p>Theo did not appreciate being ignored. He began speaking louder while Hermione and Draco arranged the platter.</p><p>“Hermione salivated at Draco’s tumescent cock, pressing her plentiful breasts against his-”</p><p>“You have the peppered Havarti I like,” Draco told her.</p><p>“Mm, goes well with the grapes.” she replied idly, opening a packet of grain wafers.</p><p>Harry had joined them now, watching the scene while casually leaning against the wall with a beer.</p><p>“Draco entered her silky folds, ‘Oh God!’ Hermione cried, ‘You’re so big!’-” Theo’s falsetto sounding absolutely nothing like the real witch.</p><p>Hermione bit down on her lip hard trying to not laugh. “I’m thinking the sopressata and mortadella, but I can’t decide between the prosciutto and the speck.”</p><p>“The prosciutto, definitely,” Draco returned easily, swiping a slice of salami while Hermione tsked at him.</p><p>Theo had nudged his way between them now.</p><p>“Draco’s skin tingled as he released the white ropes of his passion into the pulses of Hermione’s orgasm. He pulled away watching his hot cream drip out of her.”</p><p>Harry was shuddering with laughter, but Hermione simply put the finishing touches on the platter.</p><p>Draco looked like he was trying not to crack from the pressure of remaining neutral to Theo’s antics.</p><p>“That’s ready to go out now, thanks Draco.” She finally turned to Theo. In her most bland voice, she stared into his glittering eyes. “Speaking of hot cream, I think yours is burning Theo.”</p><p>He gave a strangled cry and flung the excerpt into the air to attend to his precious sauce.</p><p>Hermione followed Draco out of the kitchen topping up her wine.</p><p>“Is it really?” he asked her.</p><p>She grinned and winked at him with a shake of her head. Draco laughed.</p><hr/><p>The rest of the evening passed with more teasing, but Hermione was able to laugh at it, figuring it would be good practice for the rest of the week until her workmates got bored of ribbing her.</p><p>That night, though she read the rest of the stories. Arming herself with what had been printed so she would know when someone was making fun.</p><p>It was about the second to last story when it happened.</p><p>The curiosity.</p><p>She was lying in her bed and this particular scenario was a disturbingly familiar one since it was set in a Ministry elevator.</p><p>Most of the scenes were set in either generic places or outlandish ones. A hotel room, a kitchen, a bedroom, the Shrieking Shack, on a broom while a Quidditch game was being played, and most strange of all, on one of the hands of Big Ben with nary a Sticking Charm in sight.</p><p>None of these ignited much inside Hermione, but something about the mundane and recognisable setting of the Ministry elevator had sparked a yawning wonder in her. The author was detailed, they used the correct floors that Draco and Hermione pressed to arrive at their offices. They described their usual office attire, the way Draco typically leaned against the back of the elevators with his hands in his pockets, and how she would haphazardly pull her hair into a messy bun by the end of the day.</p><p>Yes, Hermione thought this author knew them. Rather well, in fact. She checked the non-de-plume, Budsa Famay. Not anything she recognised. She kept reading.</p><p>
  <em>“You’ve been avoiding me Granger,” Draco growled at her now they were alone. His voice stole through the confines of the elevator making it seem smaller and him seem closer than he truly was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, I haven’t,” Hermione resolutely stared ahead but she could feel his eyes on her. She shifted on her feet, determined not to rub the nape of her neck where a flushing heat was collecting.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yes, you have. I haven’t seen you in two weeks. What is that if not avoidance?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione’s heart jumped. He was standing right behind her now and she'd not heard him move. His breath ghosted over the curve of her collar. She knew what she would see if she turned around. His eyes snow-flecked. His mouth rose-touched. A carving of black ice born in the height of summer. Dangerous, slick, lovely.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So, she didn’t turn.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But she could smell him. Even as she bowed her lips to expire evenly, the air heavy on her open pout, she could smell him. Myrrh smoke, pomegranate and candied ginger dusted with frost.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She closed her eyes, but it brought her awareness of him into stark relief and she drew an arrhythmic breath as she heard him utter an incantation that halted their descent.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When he spoke again, he was in front of her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I asked you a question, Granger.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione brought her gaze up to his. The heated brown mottling barely containing the fiery amber of her molten gaze. His own were the frigid grey of an ice shelf.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She felt the magma in her veins surge.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No. You gave me rhetoric.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The corner of his mouth barely twitched.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She felt his purring rumble echo through her as it triggered a cracking fissure in his ice, the crashing pressure hitting her, and she gasped as he snapped a hand around the back of her head.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Very clever, Granger,” his voice a creaking fry. He leaned in forcing her to step back. Then again. Once more and she hit the wall of the elevator.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You can’t avoid me now,” the fractured splintering of ice back in his eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hm,” Hermione huffed a sardonic laugh, tilting her head further into his hand. She hooked her foot around his ankle and used the momentum to switch their places, her arms bracing on either side of him. The sparking fountain of smelting rock flared from her gaze.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I wasn’t avoiding, I was building.” She leaned in with the sinuous deadly movement of lava, eyes tracking the pimpling of his skin, the slow bobbing of his throat tantalising her as she radiated heat.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Building what?” his words flurried over her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She drew back, looking up through dusky lashes. There was a long pause, two barriers gathering forces waiting for the effusion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Tension.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She leaned in slow, so slow. Her lips barely grazed his, her eyes never leaving him. The wracking crunch of the ice shelf fell away as Draco grabbed Hermione to him. Pyroclasm met avalanche creating an explosive hissing of steam. Steam that trapped, that obscured, that burned. Burned so good they melted.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They tangled together, tongue and teeth meeting lips, hands that surged and rushed igniting and freezing the terrain they covered. It wasn’t known when Hermione had wrapped her legs around him or who had undone his belt or which one of them had hiked up her skirt and ripped off the scrap of lace between her legs. Only that it had happened.</em>
</p><p>Hermione cried out, the force of her orgasm arching her back, her heart beating fast and hard.</p><p>She had no idea when she’d started touching herself or why this story had caused that reaction. And she had absolutely no idea why the pleasure kept coming, fizzing up her spine to swirl in her brain. Only that it had happened.</p><p>She flung the magazine away. That wasn’t- She didn’t mean to do that. It wasn’t fair to Malfoy. She grit her teeth. She shouldn’t subconsciously put distance between them. It had taken them long enough to get to Draco and Hermione.</p><p>She exhaled. She felt like she had opened a door she couldn’t close again. Or more accurately, her orgasm had blasted the door to smithereens.</p><p>Hermione was shocked over the strength of what she’d felt. So, she did what she did best. Used her brain.</p><p>Was it just attraction? Objectively he was attractive… subjectively, too. OK, fine. The man was blisteringly hot. But that wasn’t a secret, she’d told him just this afternoon that he was handsome, and she had no qualms admitting it. He’d gone even further and said he was perfect. She rolled her eyes. The arrogance of him.</p><p>But maybe that was it? The humour, confidence and intelligence? The way he backed her up when she fell victim to Theo’s shenanigans? Her trust that Harry was safe with him as a partner?</p><p>Maybe it was all of it and she’d been too blind to see? No, she’d known. It came too easily.</p><p><em>Curious</em>.</p><p>It beat out of her brain like a pulse. Curious. She was curious. He’d come loose from where she’d placed him in her life. Harry’s partner. Theo’s brother. Her friend. Now there was a hungry, consuming curiosity.</p><p>
  <em>What would it be like?</em>
</p><p>As soon as she thought it, a crackle of resounding energy raced up her spine followed quickly by a metallic zinging low in her abdomen.</p><p>What would it be like to feel his large hands on her? Would he be soft or demanding? How much of her could he fill with a palm? She exhaled as her toes curled.</p><p>What would it be like to see his pupils dilate in desire? To be able to look into their depths for as long as she liked without social impropriety pulling her away? To look so long she reached the centre of him? What would it be like to touch his skin and find out all his secret places that make him come undone? What would it be like to kiss his lips sleepy and slow in the morning or crushing and bruising when it had been too long since she’d seen him?</p><p>What would it be like to… to <em>feel</em> him? All of him? Around her. Within her. On top of her. Behind her. Beneath her.</p><p>Her hand was in her underwear again but this time she knew exactly what she was doing.</p><p>It came quick and hard and forced her to fall back onto the bed, her legs twitching, mouth parched, black swirls edging her vision.</p><p>Yep. Smithereens.</p><hr/><p>The next couple of weeks the <em>Witch Weekly</em> scandal died for most people as the next issues came out and they moved on. But she hadn’t, hers was dog-eared and ragged despite the stasis charm upon it, buried beneath her mattress. There were still many copies left over from Theo’s bathroom renovation, but she couldn’t take one of those. She just knew he had counted them and would find out immediately if she snuck one away.</p><p>So, though Valentine’s Day had come and gone, Hermione’s curiosity still flayed her. It whipped her with delicious strokes of pleasure every time she saw Draco.</p><p>Which would then turn to guilt. It was messy having a crush on someone too connected to your life. And it was just a curiosity. She couldn’t mess up the lives of Harry and Theo to satisfy a burning to know <em>more</em>, to squirrel what she learned away like a coveted jewel.</p><p>
  <em>To call it mine.</em>
</p><p>Oh, no.</p><p>That was a new one.</p><p>She dragged her lip through her teeth and sighed. He was standing in the only sunlight in the room and it had called attention to his hair. What would it be like to run her hands through it? Would it slip through them like the finest grains of sand? Would the texture surprise her and be free like tussock swaying in the wind?</p><p>She suddenly remembered that she’d been meaning to catch up with Ron for coffee.</p><hr/><p>A further week and she got in the elevator. She saw Draco at the back past about six or so other people. She waved blithely and waited for the lift to get her to her destination.</p><p>She read a memo while she waited and almost missed when Draco brushed past her, throwing her a goodbye.</p><p>“Oh yeah, bye Draco.”</p><p>But the elevator didn’t keep moving and she looked up.</p><p>Draco was holding the doors open. She looked around but no one else was in the elevator.</p><p>He turned back and faced her. He fixed her with a hard stare.</p><p>“What?” she asked but he narrowed his eyes. “Oh God, what?”</p><p>He let the elevator doors go and it started again. Draco sent a spell to halt it and it jolted to a stop.</p><p>“Granger,” he intoned.</p><p>“What? What, what, what?” They hadn’t been alone in weeks, she’d made sure of it. She rolled her shoulder as the now-familiar feeling of starving curiosity unfurled from her like a cape, testing the air. She looked down at the offending shoulder with annoyance and rubbed it, but the prickling didn’t abate.</p><p>“You’re avoiding me, Granger.” Draco crossed his arms and stood unmoving in front of her.</p><p>“No, I-” but she bit it back. That way lay madness. “Only a little bit, I’m still nice to you.”</p><p>“You find the first excuse you can and leave whether here at work or when I visit your house. Did I do something?”</p><p>“No.” Her voice held strong conviction that he’d have to believe.</p><p>“Did <em>you</em> do something?”</p><p>“No…” Less conviction, she screwed up her nose knowing he’d catch it anyway.</p><p>He sighed. “Out with it, Granger. What did you do?”</p><p><em>What would it be like to tell him? </em> Her curiosity whispered to her.</p><p>Fine. You win.</p><p>“I’m curious.”</p><p>He snorted. “You’re always curious.” </p><p>“Yes. But right now, I am curious about <em>you</em>.” Her fingers twitched and she balled them into fists so she didn’t reach out. His eyes flicked down noticing the movement. Great.</p><p>“How does this curiosity manifest?” Damn, she was talking to Auror Malfoy now.</p><p>She flicked her eyes quickly over him. “Alright, at the moment I’m curious about the fact you have a cut on the side of your third finger and I wonder where you got it from. Why does your right sleeve have two spots of mud on it, but your shoes are immaculate? Why do you smell like rain when it is sunny today? And then there are the not safe for work curiosities.”</p><p>Draco’s left pointer finger started tapping impatiently on his right elbow where it crossed over his chest. “Tell me.”</p><p>She gave a big exhalation like it was a terrible inconvenience. “You’re tapping your wand finger and I want to run my tongue over the rougher part where the wood usually rests. I want to stroke my fingers down your back between your shirt and jacket so I can feel the warmth of you through the cotton while the cooler silk lining grazes my knuckles. I want to blow currents of air over your body because I want to know how your skin prickles. I want to know what you’d look like in just a T-Shirt and sweatpants amongst the books in my bedroom. The rest definitely violates Ministry sexual harrassment rules. And of course I’m curious about how you’re going to react to all of this because it’s absolutely insane to admit what I’m thinking, right?”</p><p>Draco smirked at her and tilted his head. His finger was tapping double-time now. “I’m guessing this ‘curiosity’ started with the <em>Witch Weekly</em> issue?”</p><p>“Yes, though I doubt you read them, and I have now irrevocably changed our relationship into the awkwardness and discomfort I was trying to avoid?”</p><p>But Draco was moving slowly around her. She suspected it was to move away, however his voice was low and eddied over her neck when he next spoke.</p><p>“Of course, I didn’t read them,” he was so close, and a shiver ran down her back. “I <em>devoured</em> them.”</p><p>Hermione stood incredibly still, taking controlled sips of air through her lips.</p><p>“So, I say again: You’ve been avoiding me, Granger.”</p><p>She smiled. Her cloak of curiosity showed its reverse side. It was desire, they’d been one and the same all along. Where curiosity had snapped and pulled her in different directions, desire flicked and fluttered focusing on Draco as a whole, not the smaller individual parts.</p><p>She slipped into the role Draco offered, “No, I haven’t.”</p><p>Draco smiled against her skin and tipped her head back. His mercurial silver eyes promising her things she was not longer curious about but craved.</p><p>But it wasn’t fire nor was it ice. It was a sparking quark that raced near the speed of light and pushed past the places her universe was known to exist.</p><p>It was better than anything <em>Witch Weekly</em> could ever come up with.</p><p>But Draco had been right when he’d appraised himself in the cafeteria that day.</p><p>He was pretty perfect.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you enjoyed this! It wouldn't leave my brain and only took me a few hours to write so apologies for any mistakes!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>